Special-needs Program Planned

March 08, 1996|By Fred Tannenbaum.

Lake Forest — A pilot special-education program that District 67 officials say will focus more on helping students than rigidly following procedures will be phased in during the next three years at three schools.

District 67 and the North Shore Special Education District will develop more creative ways to identify, assess and instruct special-needs pupils through the program, dubbed the Flexible Service Delivery System. The program will begin next year at Cherokee and Everett Schools and Deer Path Junior High School.

Illinois' special-education system includes procedures that occasionally make it unintentionally difficult to offer services to some pupils in a timely manner, said Dennis Morgan, District 67 director of pupil personnel services. The new program also will implement improved assessment guidelines to reduce any problems.

For example, a special-needs pupil could receive help from a qualified reading teacher rather than relying on special-education teachers for services.

Morgan told district board members Wednesday that NSSED is the only special-education district in Illinois that has been granted an Illinois State Board of Education waiver from normal special-education procedures to develop the program.